Since exams test our ability to recall, arrange and apply knowledge, it's difficult to overstate the importance of effective revision. Sadly, effective revision has many enemies.
Some you can do nothing about: like your addiction to social media, or your thinking that exams are pointless. Others, though, can be tackled. Chief among the enemies of revision success that you can actually do something about, is how you handle your revision time.
So without further ado, here are my top five tips for managing revision time:
Know what your goals are
"When one has much to put into them, a day has a hundred pockets"- so said Nietzsche, expressing the curious fact that time is no ordinary container- it grows with the tasks you put into it. If at the beginning of the day, you are clear on all the things you have to do, time will make space for them. If you're not, time can contract to allow only the tiniest of things to be accomplished. So make a task hit-list, and watch in glee while time dilates to accommodate it.
Don't work too much
I've never met someone capable of doing more than four hours of good work in a day. With revision, don't pretend to do more than that. By setting yourself reasonable targets, you won't feel overwhelmed, you'll have the satisfaction of hitting your goals, you'll work faster, and you won't waste time telling yourself you are working when you're actually just staring at a piece of paper.
Establish cunning habits
A habit is something you do automatically. Things you do automatically are really easy- they happen automatically, after all. So it's useful to make your revision automatic by establishing a routine- that way, you don't have to try. So pick a routine of work – 2 hours in the morning, 2 in the afternoon, say- and do it the first three days of your revision time. That'll be enough to bake in the habit, and you won't have to think about it again.
I once lost a whole month tussling with the task of posting a letter, and didn't even manage to buy a stamp. My error was to think about the task, rather than do it. Procrastination, as they say, is the thief of time, and most of the stress and effort in revision lie in thinking about doing it, rather than actually doing it. The solution is always just to begin, and not waste time worrying what will happen when you begin.
The last great source of ineffective revision is forgetting. Most of what we learn in revision is promptly forgotten, and then has to be learned again the night before the exam. You can fight this by revising cyclically. At the end of each day, look over what you've revised. Do the same at the end of each week, and at the end of each fortnight. These reviews help bake in your learning, save you from forgetting what you've just learned, and allow you to pick up and understand things you'd missed before.
That's it. It's terribly simple, really, this advice for managing your revision time: establish your goals and a realistic routine that includes time for review, and then just get on with it!
Ed Cooke is a Grandmaster of Memory, and is co-founder and CEO of Memrise.
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